Re: Chain books, a thought experiment

From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Wed Aug 21 2002 - 14:29:13 MDT


Michael Wiik wrote:

> So, making use of fair use laws, you write a review:
>
> 'In this new thriller, what most impressed me was this paragraph
>
> [ here you quote paragraph 4 on page 342 ]
>
> Which I thought was real cool'
>
> Just by concidence, the review aggregration site lists the reviews in order of
> paragraphs within pages.
>
> Who does the publisher sue?

The problem is, the sheer number of individuals doing it. We're talking
thousands of people, easily. If there was one central organizer who
paid the individuals to do this (say, the review aggregation site's
owner), then that organizer could certainly be sued. This kind of thing
is very unlikely to happen without such an organizer. If it did, of
course, there'd be no one to sue, but the law leaves that loophole
because it knows it's practically impossible to exploit. (Unless it's
the will of a whole lot of people that it should be exploited - in which
case, maybe it should be exploited. The law is "supposed" to represent
the people, after all.)



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